How AI can Prompt a More Inclusive Media Industry

Above all other forms of technology, AI will have the biggest influence on society in the future, predicted Toby Maclachlan, Head of Creative Strategy at Initiative and NBCS, during his Inspiration X session at MFA EX 2023. And the less we fear it and the more we try to understand and leverage its potential for good, the better.

AI is only as good as the data we feed it, so let’s give it a better diet. “That starts with prompts – and it starts with you,” he said.

Here’s how:

Change your POV

Start thinking about the voice not in the room, because it’s that voice that echoes through every touch point and experience thereafter. Get AI to critique your work from different perspectives so you can spot opportunities for inclusivity that could be hiding in plain sight. Reframe your perspective, and together we can retrain as a collective.

Stretch your legs

The first rule of marketing is you’re not the customer. Prompt AI to walk in someone else’s shoes from a customer perspective. See, hear and read what they do in order to build empathy. When you build empathy, you create space for more meaningful conversations.

Show don’t tell

Change the prompts. Use presentation visuals to show the potential you want to see. Because the way things have always been done isn’t how they always have to be. Take women’s football as an example: we have a whole generation of kids coming up who see the game first, not the gender. Use better prompts and visuals to retrain the systems so that historical biases remain in the past.

Check out the video of Toby Maclachlan’s MFA EX session here.